The Pick

The Pick is a bar situated on Rte. 206 in Shamong. It is known for its wings and it’s long history dating back to the early 1700’s, when it started out as mid-way rest stop for travelers. Its decor looks as though it hasn’t been remodeled since then and long time residents of the neighboring towns consider this place the local watering hole. Seigh, Mark loved going here if only for the ambiance. This is actually the place that had brought the two of them together, this place and a fist fight that landed both of them in the drunk tank for a night, that is. Its dingy atmosphere always gave the feeling of being a couple of weary travelers seeking a pint and a bed. The Pick was known now for serving the best wings anyone could find. It served cold beer btought by pretty waitresses and it was where Mark loved to go all of the time. The people there were friendly and the staff was always in a cheery mood. There was hardly ever any problems, most of the trouble wandered over from the bar up the road, but that was rare. This night happened to turn into one of those rare nights.

Mark sauntered through the door first, followed by Jax and Seigh taking up the rear. She was designated driver considering she carried the most important packages in her belly. She disliked the idea of this kind of celebration, mostly because she couldn’t indulge for herself. She did understand though, how hard Seigh and Mark had worked to make this happen for themselves. She used to love watching Seigh cut even before They’d met. It was almost as if he had been putting on some sort of a show. She wondered why she had bothered coming, all she could think about was a night that she couldn’t believe that she had remembered. It was a night that she continuously brought her mind back to. Now though, it was as if she could no longer tell the difference between the memory of it, and if it is actually happening before her eyes. She thought now that with the frequency of the memory, it was both.

She would sometimes ask Seigh where he drifted off to. But these questions would come out after they both had too much to drink, always resulting in a fight. He would shut down and that would rub Jax the wrong way. She had less of an imagination than Seigh and found any explaination difficult to comprehend. She would confide in people that she couldn’t handle the relationship anymore, due to his crazy outbursts and vacant moments. Truth was, she no longer wanted to try to understand her husband, she couldn’t accept the awful kind of person that she was for trying to make him out to be a horrible person. If anything, most of the pressure in Seigh’s life was brought on by her verbal assaults and ability to manipulate the people around her. She isolated him from everything but her and work, and played the role of victim very well. If anybody that had anything more than she had, she would squash it, she was jealous, but never wanted to admit to any of her own wrong doing. It was her nature, of being a spoiled brat, and that is the best that Seigh could surmise. This alone would have caused bitterness in any relationship, add the booze and it was a recipe for failure. They were doomed.

The marriage had gotten so bad that Seigh became convinced it was her purpose to drive him insane, it was only later, after moving her things, that he would find she was preparing for a divorce. She intended on blindsiding him and taking everything, she was a real bitch. He would have agreed to many aspects of the divorce, but the stabbing in the back caused him to believe that some people cant understand normal thinking. These actions taught him patience and instead of being bitter, it caused him to learn a more hearfelt forgiveness. But, apathy still had it’s merits, if not for his children he wouldn’t have cared at all.

Much of their drinking did stop after the news of Jax’s pregnancy. But, she still always had the same questions on her mind and she knew that the death of his family was always on his. Seigh was a man with a fragmented past. The time he had spent growing up with the Indigos was something that bothered her, too. She felt that this was more of a cult and it scared her, the thought of her children growing up with that kind of mentality was not something that she wanted to encourage. The fact that he held back from talking about it bothered her more. She wanted answers to everything. Yet, no matter how hard he tried to explain, she didn’t want to accept it as a truth. She would beat it into him that his entire life had been some delusional bag of bullshit, and the more she would try to pry for an actual truth that she could accept, the further away it drove Seigh.

The school had always been a bit of a mystery for those that didn’t attend. He never talked about his childhood there. All she knew from the research she had done on her own was that it was that Indigo philosophy was a bit of a cult fad that had developed in the late eighties. They encouraged the philosophy that certain children were born with special abilities. That the Indigo movement wanted to keep these kids safe and help them to understand their abilities. Most of the kids there had a family to go home to, though. Seigh was an every day staple in the place. He had no choice but to live there. She guessed he drank to smother his past. She pitied and kept a distance from him after an incident in the kitchen that Seigh had never been able to recall. Jax would go over the incident again and again in her mind. She chalked it up to her being drunk as well and blamed him for all the negativities that happened. She overlooked all her flaws and again, took no responsibility in regards to how much she would push for answers that just weren’t there.

“Seigh, I want to know how you feel about your sister. It was so long ago, and I really don’t like the fact that you hang onto the past like that. It’s time for you to bury that tragedy and move on with your life.” Seigh stared at her with a blank expression, wondering why these questions would only surfave after they had been drinking. He was weary from too much vodka and could barely stand, but his demeanor had changed behind his jade-green eyes. They went dark, and that urged Jax to keep digging. The alcohol always provided the courage she needed to dig without remorse and it fueled the drive behind Jax’s assaults. If anything, her high-pitched condescending tone did little more than pierce his ears and grab the attention of his frustrations.

“Listen Seigh, I want what’s best for you and I. I want a family with you, but you’re always so damn distant. It just always feels like you’re keeping things from me and I don’t want to live in a constant state of not knowing what is going on inside your head.” Reasonable questions, but the timing was always off.

“There really ism’t anything to open up to you about that I haben’t already said to you. Each time you neither believe, nor understamd.” Seigh slurred.

“Try me Seigh!”

“OK….you asked, just remember that.” Seigh hesitated and took several deep breaths to collect his thoughts, he hated having this conversation with her because he knew the end result would amount to a fight that he couldn’t win. “When I was a child, I was placed in an orphanage for a small amount of time.” Seigh explained to her about the incident with Ron Cellars. He told her the dream he’d had about Remliel, and that’s when she began to cut him off.

“Stop! This is all bullshit Seigh and you know it. How the hell do you expect me to feed into all that crap? I mean seriously, a fucking angel? C’mon. You don’t even know what happened to that kid other than what some frigging nun said. And this fairy-tale place just doesn’t exist.” Jax said as she began to turn red in the face.

“I told you Jax. Let’s just try to get some sleep before this turns into an argument. I have work in the morning.” Seigh said stumbling away and following his normal trend of shutting down.

“FUCK WORK! Don’t walk away from me. You’re already starting to close off and shut down. It’s like you’re trying to bring your sister back, and that’s just pathetic and stupid.” Jax was starting to raise her voice. Words like this, from the person that was supposed to love him the most always cut deepest. She was attempting to mold him to a life that he already had a difficult time adapting to. Thus, taking him away from who he is.

“Jax, please stop. You’re starting to escalate and I don’t want another drunken fight. You don’t know what you’re saying.” Seigh now trying to calm her down. Even drunk he still remained a peacemaker.

“That’s half your problem. You fucking puss out when push comes to shove and go off hiding in your own little nexus where no one can go. What did you and little Darling do? Make something up that you actually think exists? That’s stupid kid shit, Seigh. She’s dead, dead for years now, and all this make pretend bullshit has to stop!” Jax demanded slamming her hand down on the kitchen counter.

Seigh turned tried to retreat from her hollars, but Jax grabbed his shirt and turned him to face her. “Don’t fuc….” before she could finish the sentence she was choking or felt like she was being choked. But, no one was touching her. Seigh’s eyes were absent now, lost behind a dark shade of forest green, and almost glowing. Words of a song she recognized were running through her head as she was being lifted off her feet. The cabinet doors opened and shut and The plates were actually chattering music to the words in her head.

The choking stopped and whatever was holding her dropped her to her feet. The plates stopped their hypnotic chatter and Seigh turned and stumbled to bed. On his way out he said, “let’s just sleep it off Jax, please. I don’t want to argue. I tried to explain and you don’t seem to ever want to listen…only fight…. I’m not about to fight all night. Sleep well.”

Jax stood alone in the vacant kitchen, surrounded by the haunting reminder of the plate orchestra. She finally had a grasp on the scars that were left on Seigh from his childhood. She didn’t fully accept what happened, and still felt she held no blame for her assault. However, it left her feel too frightened to ask again. That fear began to drown her love for him. Two days later she found out she was pregnant.

“LAST CALL!” Jared, the Pick’s favorite bartender, shouted out to the patrons. The yell broke Jax’s concentration and she didn’t realize how much time had gone by.

Her attention was drown to watching Mark at the bar and peered over to notice Seigh with a queer little smile on his face. He wasn’t drinking much at the moment and was completely indulging in how much fun Mark was having. Between the two of them, she could see from what was left on the table that they both had a bit too much to drink. Mark, she thought, was making an imbecile of himself, and Seigh was off in his own little world…yet again…. “I’m going to get the car Seigh.” Jax said with a humble smile on her face.

“Ok, babe. Meme and Mark are gonna fimish our beer. An we will been out fromt to meent you out front.” Seigh said fumbling and slurring words.

“Whatever, you guys are so fucking wasted.” She was in a good mood, and actually felt a twinge of happiness for the guys. She gave Seigh a kiss on the forehead and made her way out of The Pick, waving bye to Jared as she walked by him. He waved back and said have a good night. Walking across the parking lot she crossed paths with a shady fellow known as Christian Devries. He wore an eye patch and carried a cane around with him, he had the look of a dingy pirate from the lower levels of the ship. He was completely hammered and making his way from Salties, the raw bar a half mile away. He always gave the bartenders a hard time at last call, and was likely ejected for a rude comment to one of the ladies that worked there.

“Hey-hey pretty, you going home alone tonight?” Even six months pregnant Jax would be considered a ‘Jersey dime’. Her auburn hair, high cheekbones and long legs would attract most men, and she always turned heads. To Christian , it didn’t matter, all he saw was a pussy. She kept walking and ignored the drunken cat calls from Christian, he continued to follow her through the parking lot and reached out with his cane, grabbing her arm. “C’mere girly, don’t you think you ought to have some company tonight?”

“Get off of me! My husband is on his way out right now!” He ignored this and pulled her in closer and grabbed at her with his free hand. She managed to pull away, jutting her elbows into his mid-section, but tripped and fell down on the asphalt as she backed away. “Oh, hard to get, I kind of like that girly.” Christian said walking towards her. Mark and Seigh exited the bar with their backs’ turned. Mark fell down coming through the door at about the same time Jax did. Seigh nearly went as he turned and tried to help him up. That’s when he looked up and saw Christian (three Christians, actually), as well as Jax, she was trying to get up from the asphalt and scramble away from him.

“Hey! What the hell is going on over there!? JAX! Are youm ulkay!?” Seigh shouted.

Christian turned and gripped his cane as any seasoned bar fighter would do. “Well, c’mon faggot. You gonna protect your bitch!?” Seigh looked down momentarily not wanting a fight. Jax made her way to her feet stumbling forward. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Maddie Wilson was gunning drunkenly through the parking lot in her 4x4. Little spoiled rich girl searching for her phone didn’t even see Jax. The last thing Maddie Wilson saw was Christian’s one eye staring at her as their heads collided.

Witnesses to what happened that night would tell the police that Christian began to beat himself with his own cane in a drunken fit that was normally common of him on nights of failure. Then he adamantly smashed his head into the grill of the 4x4 and threw himself through the windshield, and beat his own head into Maddy’s, killing her. Seigh was in the second coma of his life.

~#~